January 2018, Ontoforce investment

20.01.2018

Ghent & Brussels, January 23rd, 2018 – ONTOFORCE and Korys jointly announced the closing of a EUR 4.3 million financing round to fuel the company’s growth and future development. Next to Korys, Annie Vereecken, PMV, LRM and the company’s management participated to the round.

ONTOFORCE has developed an innovative semantic search platform called DISQOVER®, which allows for the integration and querying of data from a wide range heterogenous databases. The company has gained significant traction in the life sciences industry by allowing pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to search more than 110 scientific and medical databases in an efficient and user-friendly manner. To fuel further growth, the company will build on its life sciences expertise while gearing up to expand to other sectors such as finance, fast moving consumer goods.

Hans Constandt, founding CEO of Ontoforce said: “We are extremely proud to have Korys and Annie Vereecken as new investors and see this investment as a further validation of the value of our semantic data integration and search. We are convinced that with this investment we can become a world player in the analysis of big data, providing valuable information to our customers for making smarter decisions much better and faster.”

“This is a technology platform with amazing breath. Given the ease for large scale integration of proprietary data with public data, DISQOVER is applicable not only within healthcare, but wherever large data sets require integration to extract valuable information. This transaction will allow ONTOFORCE to grow the capabilities of DISQOVER® and accelerate the growth of its team and activities in the US, by being backed by a culturally compatible, long-term equity partner. Korys is excited to become part of an innovative player in the semantic search field. The focus on creating efficiency gains by better use of data through a qualitative and high value product is completely aligned with Korys’ vision and values.” added Dries Crevits, executive director direct investments at Korys.

About ONTOFORCE

ONTOFORCE develops pioneering semantic search technology for information management. Their user-friendly data search platform DISQOVER builds uniquely intelligent links between heterogenous data sources, allowing everybody to become a data scientist. ONTOFORCE enjoys the support of well-reputed research institutes such as iMinds, UCSD (University of California, San Diego), MMLab University Ghent, MIT and Harvard Catalyst Group.

About Korys

Korys is a family-owned holding company that on the one hand focuses on direct investments in non-listed companies, and on the other hand also manages a portfolio of listed investments. Today, it has more than EUR 4 billion of assets under management, among which a significant participation in Colruyt Group, a leading retail company in Belgium and France. Investment decisions are taken with a long-term perspective on the basis of economic, ecological and social merit. Korys aims to create sustainable value through a diversified portfolio of investments and focuses on investment themes in which it has built substantial expertise, such as “Conscious Consumer”, “Medical Revolution”, “Energy Transition”, “Leadership in Retail”, “Resource Revolution” and “Future-proof Real Estate”. Korys has a team of more than 20 professionals based in Belgium and Luxembourg.